


Crossing Lines

by karuvapatta



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angels, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 19:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19362610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karuvapatta/pseuds/karuvapatta
Summary: Crowley meets the Devil in Los Angeles. His problems only start there.





	1. Chapter 1

It was the thrice-damned visas. One of Crowley’s better ideas, true, but decidedly more annoying now that he had to get one himself. And what with that, the eleven hour flight, and the horrible Los Angeles traffic – well, no wonder he was late.

Too late, perhaps. He paused in front of the shabby house, covered in criss-crossing lines of yellow police tape, and sighed.

“Bloody great,” said Crowley. “Fantastic. Superb.”

The police were milling around the property, all of them armed. They were starting to give him weird looks. With a flick of his fingers he could have their stares slide off him like water off a proverbial duck, but he didn’t fancy getting himself in trouble over a minor demonic miracle. Not _here._ Not in this city.

“Are you the owner of this establishment?” an officer asked him in thick American accent.

“Who, me?” Crowley shrugged. “Nah. Just a nosy passer-by, really. What happened?”

The officer placed their hand in the vicinity of their gun. Not a threatening gesture, yet, but could become one in a matter of seconds.

“That’s classified, sir.”

“Bugger,” Crowley muttered.

Surely a minor miracle wouldn’t hurt. Would it? He would hate to have come here for nothing. There had to be some information to be gained, even with the humans messing around the crime scene.

_Not here_ , he told himself firmly; no miracles. Instead he tried to peek over the officer’s shoulder. He didn’t _want_ to get in trouble; Crowley was a big fan of staying out of trouble. And if he leaned to the side and squinted, he could just about pick out the figures moving inside the house—one of whom turned and looked straight at him, and—

Oh. Oh, _fuck._

He took one, two steps backwards, trying not to hiss at the flabbergasted police officer.

“I will,” Crowley babbled. “I will just. Go and. Leave.”

_Fuckfuckbuggeringdamn—“_ Crowley?”

He could not disobey that voice. He could not leave. He stood there, helplessly, and would have prayed if there was someone a demon could pray to.

The man walking down the overgrown path looked human, or at least what most humans wished they looked like: tall and handsome and elegant. And he moved as if he owned the place, which he more or less did, with a dull glow of hellfire behind his eyes that only Crowley could see.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, pleasantly.

Crowley shivered.

“Lord Lucifer,” he said.

He didn’t bow, in case the Devil wanted to stay incognito, but he did incline his head in deference, in the interest of not being boiled alive.

“You know him?” asked a human woman who walked side-by-side with Lucifer and didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the idea.

Humans. Huh.

“You might say that,” Lucifer said. “He used to work for me.”

_Used to?_ Interesting turn of phrase. Crowley might have asked him to clarify, if he could persuade his numb lips to form words.

The woman looked Crowley up and down, a frown between her delicate brows.

“At the club?” she shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. Why are you here?”

Crowley opened and closed his mouth.

“Answer the question, Crowley,” Lucifer said.

“Yes, Lord,” Crowley said faintly. “I, uh. I was supposed to meet someone. An old associate.”

“Well, I regret to inform you that whoever you were meeting might already be dead,” the female voice spoke, while Crowley tried to keep his legs from folding underneath him. “You could help us by identifying the body. He did not have any papers on him.”

“Who were you supposed to meet?” Lucifer asked.

“Reus,” Crowley said. “He had asked me to come here, Lord. He sent me this.”

Like most demons who hadn’t lived on Earth for very long, Reus had an abysmal grasp of modern technology. But the letter made it to England without issue, and by entirely conventional, human means. If not for the sigil at the end, Crowley would have considered it a prank and gladly tossed it into a garbage, or better yet: set it on fire. But the sigil was there, slightly warm to the touch, bearing Reus’s demonic name.

The woman, a detective, snatched the letter from his hand before he managed to hand it to Lucifer, and apparently didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“’Heading to L.A.’,” she read out-loud. “’The bastards won’t get me here. Meet me at:’” and then the address of the sad shack where Reus met his ultimate demise. “Oh, dear. Someone was after him, then?”

“Yes. Which means that this case is hardly worth our time, Detective,” Lucifer said, scanning the letter and handing it back to Crowley. The demonic sigil flared up in the Devil’s presence, so Crowley shoved it into his pocket before the humans noticed.

“We still don’t know who it was,” the woman protested.

“Does it matter? Reus had plenty of enemies and I have no interest in their petty feuds,” Lucifer said.

Neither did Crowley. Crowley wanted to be far, far away from here. Over five thousand miles, to be exact, preferably somewhere nice and cosy, full of expensive alcohol and an inexplicably friendly presence. Like Aziraphale’s bookshop. It took all of Crowley’s willpower not to miracle himself over there.

“You never said you recognized the body!” the detective said.

“I did not. A lot of time has passed. People change, Detective.”

Reus had changed; he had no other choice. A decade ago he got inconveniently discorporated and had been possessing human bodies ever since. The corpse on the apartment floor had been human, up until very recently, and Crowley couldn’t supress a full-body shudder once he saw what had been done to it.

“Why was he killed?” asked the detective when they took Crowley to see the crime scene. “Do you know?”

“I can guess,” said Crowley absent-mindedly, and tried to focus on the smell of blood and burning flesh and not, say, Aziraphale’s new cologne or the dusty scent of his book collection. His entire demonic self yearned to be back there.

“Tell us, then,” said Lucifer.

He couldn’t disobey the Devil himself, no matter how badly he wanted to. But the human woman had no idea what was happening around her and Crowley had no desire to spook her out.

“It was sort of like a gang war, really,” he said. “Reus wanted to quit, but some of the, uh, guys, don’t take kindly to such ideas.”

“So they turned on him?”

“Them – us, I mean,” Crowley frowned. “Or the other guys. This is more of their style. No rest for the wicked, eh?” he smiled maniacally at Lucifer, and then realized who he was smiling at. “Sorry, Lord.”

“Wait,” the detective said, staring at Lucifer. “You were in a _gang_?”

“Don’t be absurd, Detective,” Lucifer said.

“And why is he calling you ‘Lord’?” she continued.

“I would rather know why Reus decided to come to L.A.,” Lucifer said. “Was he going to ask for my protection, I wonder?”

“He might have thought your presence here would be protection enough,” Crowley said. Even the stupidest of demons wouldn’t come to the Devil himself to request sanctuary after ditching Hell. Or so he hoped. The standards down there weren’t exactly high, but you would have to very, very stupid. Or very, very desperate.

Whatever it was, it hadn’t done the poor bastard any favours. In a sense, he had been murdered twice; a rogue demon and an unfortunate human host. That _should_ remove Heaven from the list of suspects, but Crowley knew Heaven too damn well. They could be just as ruthless, if not more. Less cruel, perhaps, but only for a very narrow definition of cruelty.

He was dimly aware of a conversation happening, but couldn’t focus through the sheer mind-numbing terror.

“I will need to take your statement,” the woman was saying. Or perhaps it was “Do you think they are after you?”, directed at _the Devil_ with an obvious concern in her voice.

Crowley wanted to scream. But, honestly, maybe they were? Neither demons nor angels approved of Lucifer’s decision to leave Hell behind. Not that they would admit it to his face, _ever_ , save for the ridiculously powerful and the mind-bogglingly stupid.

“Or maybe it was a trap,” she said, considering. “Have you thought of that?”

“Huh?” Crowley said. “A trap. Wait, for me?”

“That friend of yours reached out to you,” she said. _Friend_ , hah. “Whoever murdered him might have anticipated that. And now that you are in L.A…”

_Now that he was in L.A._

Crowley froze. He thought he had been terrified, yes. Lucifer’s presence did that to people (and demons, and angels…). But this was a new flavour of fear; it sucked every thought from his head, even the selfish concern for his own well-being; even the memory of pain…

_L.A. He was in L.A. He wasn’t in London._

“I think I have to go,” he said flatly. “I. Have to.”

“Wait!” said the woman, and “Crowley!” said the Devil, but Crowley was past caring.

The humans saw him run out of the house, but it was all they could see. Ages ago, Crowley had been flying amongst the stars; he knew about folding time and space around himself. It was a skill he seldom needed while on Earth, as time here was made to be enjoyed and spent and occasionally wasted, but he needed it _now_.

He flew high above land and sea, as fast as his demonic powers allowed; there was the Island, and London – he folded his wings and plummeted, and it felt like falling again, except this time he _wanted_ to get to the bottom. He had to.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley shouted, from the rooftop of the bookshop, and then the street down below. People were staring at him, at the black wings sprouting from his back, but this was _his_ city, and _his_ home, and easy enough to push their attention away from himself.

“Aziraphale?”

The door opened when he pushed it. There was no one inside.

He knew this even before he walked around and saw the overturned bookshelves, the singed wood, the signs of struggle; Aziraphale’s prized collection scattered carelessly on the floor. He knew, because he could feel the deep, gnawing sense of dread within him.

Aziraphale was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Three months later._

Well, nothing to it. He had exhausted every other option.

“Hello?” Crowley called out into the blinding white light. It hurt his eyes even through the thick glasses. Everything about this place screamed: _you are not supposed to be here_.

“Oi!” Crowley said, shielding his face with a forearm. “I know you bastards can hear me!”

There was nothing but absolute silence and the brightest of all lights. He was starting to notice thin tendrils of smoke curling above his exposed skin, so he balled his hands into fists and pressed his face into the uncomfortably warm leather jacket.

“I can do this for ages, you know!” he lied.

The jacket helped, but not for long. He spun around but there was no reprieve from the heavenly light.

“Angels!” _Fuck._ Fuck each and every single one of them, the self-righteous bastards.

Even the jacket was smoking by now. Crowley stood there stubbornly, and would stay there, banging his fists at the Gates of Heaven until they let him in. Or until he was reduced to ash. Whichever came first.

“You are not welcome here,” a celestial voice whispered in his ear.

“Leave,” another said.

“Or stay and burn,” the last one said pleasantly. “We honestly do not care.”

“Gabriel,” Crowley hissed.

He lowered his arms. There were there, three smug archangels; blurry outlines was all his damaged eyes could register, but he would know them anywhere.

“Where is he?” Crowley demanded.

“Who?”

“Aziraphale! _Obviously_ I’m talking about Aziraphale!”

Either his sight was getting used to the light, or it was a dying vision: the domes and spires of the City, his once-home. But that had been a long time ago and Crowley had more pressing concerns now, like punching that fake smile off Gabriel’s face.

“Why would we tell you, demon?” he asked.

“ _Bastards_ ,” Crowley repeated, vehemently. The sleeve of his shirt had caught fire; he tried to ignore that. “You _know_ he is in trouble. _Where is he?_ ”

“This is not for you to know,” Gabriel said. “You’ve done enough, wouldn’t you say?”

At this point, sheer willpower was keeping the skin attached to his skull. Crowley bared his teeth.

“You were to leave him alone,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare tell me this is what Almighty would have wanted!”

“You will not utter his name, demon,” Uriel said pleasantly. “You haven’t the right.”

_Shut your stupid face_ , was what Crowley had meant to say. Unimaginative, as far as insults go, because it was getting really, _really_ hard to concentrate. But his tongue felt like a red-hot bar of iron in his mouth, and he managed only a low whine.

“It is not for us to punish Aziraphale,” Gabriel said. “But it is not for us to save him, either.”

He stepped closer. Crowley hadn’t managed to stay on his feet; but the archangel momentarily obscured the blinding light of the Divine presence, and he was pathetically grateful to hide in his shadow.

“You see, demon,” Gabriel began. “Some of us felt it unjust that he should go on living in sin. Some of us felt it made a mockery of the Great Plan and everything we stand for. Vengeance is not in our nature, of course, so those unfortunate few had been cast from Heaven.” He smiled benevolently. Crowley wanted to strangle him. “But our Lord works in mysterious ways, demon. They will carry on Her will, purging the Earth of all those who seek to undo the natural order of things.”

“Oh. Damn,” Crowley said. “Are you listening to yourself?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

“I will tell you where he is,” he said in a quiet, even voice. “I will tell you, so that you can find him. So that you can understand. Because, you see,” he reached down and grabbed Crowley by the neck. Too weak to struggle, Crowley could only wriggle in his grasp. “You did this to him, demon. You traded his soul for a chance at redemption.” He squeezed Crowley’s windpipe and watched, smiling, as he fought for breath. “But you cannot be redeemed. God will never forgive you, and neither will Aziraphale.”

_“Fuck—you—_ ” Crowley gasped eloquently.

The knowledge burned itself into his head and then everything went blissfully, entirely black.

***

Three months wasn’t a long time, Crowley told himself. It couldn’t be _that_ bad.

“Are you certain he is here?” asked the woman, Detective Decker, who inexplicably decided to tag along with Lucifer.

“Yeah,” said Crowley tightly.

They were in a middle of nowhere in one of the Californias or wherever. Were there two of them? Crowley couldn’t remember. In truth, he could not remember much of anything whatsoever, only that the burning of the desert sun was unbearable on his tender skin. And that Lucifer was here, _the Devil_ , because Crowley had asked him for help.

Funny old world, really.

There was a door; they knocked it down. And angels, oh, maybe six of them, with that manic gleam in their eyes of the newly Fallen; their bodies deformed into obscene, grotesque shapes. Crowley remembered that feeling, if only vaguely. He remembered the burning need to reject the Divinely-ordained perfection and go so far to the other side, you wound up basically where you started.

“Well, hello there,” Lucifer grinned.

They hissed and gurgled and made other noises; Crowley could barely muster the energy to feel _anything_ at the sight of them. Detective Decker, meanwhile, had gone deathly pale and then fainted.

“Oh, don’t worry, she won’t remember anything,” Lucifer said as Crowley caught her and laid her gently on the ground. Then he turned to the twisted forms of the fallen angels. “You think you chose freedom, don’t you?” he said loudly. “Well, have I got the news for you—”

He raised his hand, and the ground opened. Crowley felt the stench of sulphur, saw the flames lick at his feet and then rise and reshape around Lucifer; saw, for the briefest moment, the agony of the angels.

“That brings back memories,” he said.

“Only unpleasant ones, I should hope,” Lucifer said. His voice sounded with a billion echoes, reverberating inside Crowley’s skull until it drowned out everything else.

Then, slowly, the echoes faded; the flames flickered and went out. Lucifer smoothed the creases on his designer suit and looked around the room. An eternity later, Crowley managed to raise his own head.

“Where did you send them, Lord?” he asked, disinterested.

“Hell, naturally. After all, I was made to build it for a reason.”

“Mmm,” said Crowley.

He could see him now. Well – he had seen him before. He had just hoped it wasn’t Aziraphale.

Detective Decker began to stir. Lucifer gathered her in his arms with a curious sort of reverence.

“Get him out of here before she sees him,” he told Crowley.

“Yeah. Okay.”

He didn’t even care anymore. He supposed he owed the Devil some sort of thanks, but he had yet to see if there was anything left in this world he could be thankful for.

***

Aziraphale – what was left of him – weighted next to nothing in his arms. Above all else, Crowley was tired, and wanted to get them both home.

He had tidied up the bookshop. It was the least he could do, really. When—if— _when_ he regained his strength, Aziraphale wouldn’t want to see it in a state of disarray. He cared about the damned books, after all.

The angel did not enjoy sleeping as much as Crowley did, but he had a small bedroom in this place. And a bed. Crowley put him there, for lack of a better place, and stood by, and watched and watched. It would—well—it would be easier to do away with his corporeal form and request a new one. Sometimes it just _was_. Aziraphale would remember, of course, just as Crowley remembered the early days of Hell, but his body wouldn’t. And he might eventually know peace.

Except Heaven would not lend him a dirty handkerchief at this point, much less a functional body. And it wasn’t in Crowley’s power to create one.

“Well, angel,” he sighed. “It looks like we will be here a while.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Six years later._

“Ow,” said Aziraphale carefully.

“What was that?” Crowley asked.

“I said,” Aziraphale had to hold onto a wall as he walked. But he did walk; all the way to his favourite armchair. “Ow.”

Crowley shrugged and filled both of their glasses.

“You wouldn’t be complaining if you agreed to switch bodies with me.”

With his shaking hands, Aziraphale barely managed to raise a glass to his lips. He did manage a glare, however.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Do we have more of that wonderful morphine, I wonder?”

“Sure,” Crowley said.

Hell liked to cause pain. Heaven liked to preach it was necessary for the soul. Humans did both, of course, but the clever bastards also developed analgesics.

“I’m serious,” Crowley said, trying not to stare as Aziraphale tried to attach the pump to the crook of his elbow.

“I know you are,” the angel said. “And if you ever try it again without my permission, my dear, I will be _very_ cross with you.”

He frowned down at the fingers that wouldn’t quite obey him. Unprompted, Crowley took the few short steps between them, uncorked the cannula, fixed the morphine pump and then fiddled with the settings. There were other ways, like tablets or patches or things, that they might have to consider soon. Slowly but surely, Aziraphale was getting better.

“This is nice,” the angel said, putting his head back and letting his eyes fall shut.

Crowley snorted.

“If you say so.”

There were still things he wanted to do this evening: put the new books in their proper shelves, review monthly budget, yell at the plants. They were getting complacent. His fault, most likely, as he could rarely bring himself to terrify them into perfection. And it had worked so well in the past.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured sleepily.

He swallowed. The angel wanted to hold his hand, except he couldn’t. Obviously. His hand lay limp at his side, managing only a feeble twitch when Crowley took it.

“I’m here,” he said, voice hoarse.

“Stop worrying about me,” Aziraphale said.

He hadn’t opened his eyes, so he couldn’t see Crowley’s expression. Maybe that was a good thing.

“Angel,” Crowley said. “Listen. I—” _My fault_ was an understatement of the millennium; no amount of apologies would undo what had been done. And yet he _wanted_ to offer them, every day for the rest of eternity.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale sighed. “You know I can occasionally hear your thoughts?”

“I know,” Crowley said wretchedly.

Aziraphale would have been better off without him; he could see it now. Finally, after six thousand years, Crowley could see the damage he had done. Gabriel had been _right_.

“So shut the hell up,” Aziraphale said.

He fell asleep, still clutching Crowley’s hand.


End file.
